Improving GK Rushing.

[fred741]

For starters, when I talk about "rushing" in the context of goalkeepers I mean when the player instructs them to come out and "rush" towards the ball, usually for one-one-one situations. It's these situations I want to talk about.

As it is, when instructed to rush (in PES 2010), the keeper runs directly towards the ball, but is often left out of position by the movement of the ball and his failure to compensate for it, allowing the attacker an easy goal; I'd describe this as unrealistic, since all football fans know that in these situations the goalkeeper's first priority is to cover his goal and remain central in front of it from the view of the attacker.

To make absolutely clear what I mean, I'll use an example. Let's say the striker is bearing down on goal dead through the middle (quite how this happened is unimportant; maybe the centre-half is playing with two broken legs). The keeper is told to rush, and he starts to run out towards the ball. However, the striker changes direction, veering off to his right. In PES 2010, the keeper simply chases towards the new position of the ball, moving in a sort of banana shape bending away from his goal. But in doing so he's left a totally clear goal for the attacker to slot into (even if he was aware of the need to cover it was only a secondary concern).

This happens because: (1) the keepers in PES 2010 seem to have little (if any) anticipation of the movement of ball and player in these situations; and (2) they appear to have no instinct to remain central relative to their goal (and thereby cover most of it) when rushing.

I'm not a games developer, but I assume the first problem could be a complex one to fix. The second, though, seems quite simple: adjust the keepers' AI so that, when they rush, they attempt first and foremost to cover their goal by remaining central relative to it, and only once this has been achieved should they then try to close down the attacker. Should their relative positions change (as they probably will), the keeper should then adjust to this, and so on and so on. I've framed this as two separate instructions for the sake of (attempted) simplicity but really they should be carried out in conjunction with one another for fluidity.

I say all of this because I think it will improve the realism of the goals scored in PES. Obviously, I don't like conceding goals I feel are unrealistic (this is just one variant), but equally I don't like scoring them, as it cheapens the achievement. I often turn my player back if I am about to score from one of these situations, as I'd rather not score an unrealistic goal. Hopefully my suggestions should improve things a bit.